Aim to position India as a global nerve centre for data-driven innovation: Piyush Goyal

New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS) Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday chaired a comprehensive discussion at the CEO roundtable on ease of doing business (EoDB) in the data centre and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors.

“The deliberations focused on strengthening the policy ecosystem, regulatory processes and digital infrastructure to catalyse investment in next-generation technologies,” the minister said in a post on X.

He also emphasised the government's vision to position India as a global nerve centre for data-driven innovation and AI excellence.

“Also reinforced our commitment to building a future-ready, knowledge-based digital economy in line with the vision of Viksit Bharat,” said Goyal.

India’s data centre industry is witnessing a massive boom, driven by the country’s rapid digital transformation, growing internet usage, and rising demand for AI and cloud-based services.

With Google’s $15 billion investment, India is positioning itself as a major global data hub. India’s data centre capacity is expected to grow from the current 1.2 GW to about 8 GW by 2030, expanding at an annual rate of nearly 17 per cent, according to Trade Brains report.

This growth will make India one of the fastest-growing data centre markets in the world. The surge in internet penetration and data usage has been a key growth driver.

At present, India has more than 260 operational data centres, with most of them located in major hubs such as Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. MMR and Chennai alone account for nearly 70 per cent of the total data centre capacity.

Industry data from Anarock Capital shows that around 60 per cent of data centre clients are enterprises, 30 per cent are hyperscalers like Google, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft, and the remaining 10 per cent are AI users.

—IANS

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